Wine Cooler 4 U Blog

Vinotemp 160 Bottle Wine Cooler Cellar

Weiman Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish

Fed up with fingerprints on your stainless steel wine cooler? You will see many articles and opinions on the Internet praising the low cost of using white vinegar. Well, we have tried every thing and always return to the Weiman spray Stainless Steel Cleaner and Polish. The vinegar approach is a pain unless the unit is almost completely clean.  Well, ours usually gets cleaned after we can no longer ignore the streaks and spots resulting from the multiple “lick and a promise” solution.

If you have a hard-to-remove stain on your stainless steel wine cooler you can use one of the powder stainless steel cleaners. We prefer Kleen-King powder as it is intended for stainless steel and has a mild abrasive in it.

Warnings:

• As with any cleaner, you should avoid all contact with the eyes and prolonged contact with the skin

• Keep out of the reach of children

Store Your Chocolate in Your Wine Cooler

The ideal temperature for storing your chocolate and confectionery products is 63-68 degrees F. The products will be more tolerant of temperatures below 65 degrees F, than of temperatures above 70 degrees F.

For a single zone wine cooler, we recommend setting the temperature at 55 degrees, then storing the reds at the top of the cooler and the whites at the bottom. The top will be a little warmer, the bottom, a little cooler. When you drink the red, just let it warm a bit in the glass. To cool some whites further, just put the bottle in the fridge for 5 minutes. We usually just drop an ice cube into the glass, swirl it and remove it. Viola, ready to drink. If you are a purist, you probably don’t agree with what I just said. Oh well! It works for most people.

Back to the chocolate. If you have a single zone cooler, the 55 degrees is a little bit cool. However, it is much better than the fridge, a way better than the 70ish degree room temperature. The humidity in the wine cooler is close enough to the recommended 50% or lower. Store the chocolate on the top shelf and keep it at least four inches away from the walls. This allows proper circulation of air around the chocolate.

With perfect storage conditions, you can expect a shelf life of nine months to one year for pastel products, one year for milk chocolates and cocoa confectionery products, and one year to 18 months for dark chocolate. Unless you are making and storing your chocolate as a business, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to store their chocolate for these time periods. Maybe a week or two. But, months or years. Not!

Vinotemp 160 Bottle Bamboo Wine Cabinet

So, you don’t have a wine cooler? Let’s fix that. If you are a (very) casual wine drinker, perhaps a 26 bottle cooler would be perfect. In this size range the Vinotemp VT-26 is a good choice. If you love wine as we do, then you may want something in the 75 bottle range so that you can have a wide variety of wines and/or be able to take advantage of a particularly good sale of your favorites. The Danby 75 bottle wine cooler is a very good buy. Prefer “green” products? Take a look at the Vinotemp Bamboo Wine Cabinet.

Metrokane rabbit Bottle Stopper

Finally, we think we have found the ultimate wine bottle stopper.

The rabbit Bottle Stoppers come in 7 colors, randomly packed 2 per container

Even with the best of the push lever (See our previous bottle stopper Post) type stoppers, ultimately they fail. Our latest find, which we have been using for about three months is the “rabbit Wine Bottle Stopper”.  It is made of a soft material (rubber?) with a metal insert in the top.  We suspect the insert is there to help it keep its form.

They are easy to insert and remove and clean up quickly with water.  According to the Metrokane website, they are also usable with soda bottles.

The Metrokane website indicates the price to be $4.00/pack.  We found them on the web for more and less with widely varying shipping costs.  We found ours at BevMo for $5.00 if you pick it up. The BevMo manager we spoke with expressed the opinion that they were better than anything they had offered.

As of now, we are using four to be able to have four bottles of wine open at one time in our Cavavin wine cabinet.

In addition to the information on this Blog about wine coolers and products, we also include other topics as they come to our attention – all wine related, but not directly wine cooler related.  We do this to add some fun to our Blog. The items below are a sampling from the Blog:

• Buy Wine You Never Heard of Before for Your Wine Cabinet
• Will Chocolate With Your Wine Keep You Awake Tonight?
• Store Your Blended Wines in Your Wine Cooler
• Do You Remember Bartles & Jaymes?
• First Ad for WineCooler4U
• Better Health? Drink Red Wine & Eat Dark Chocolate
• What’s in a Wine “Nose”? Cat’s Pee
• What’s in a Wine “Nose”? Petrol
• What’s in a Wine “Nose”? Clove
• What’s in a Wine “Nose”? Vanilla
• What’s in a Wine “Nose”? Caramel
• What’s in a Wine “Nose”? Butter
• Selecting Furniture for Outdoor Wine Drinking
• Tired of Paying a Lot of Money to Taste Wines at The Vineyards? Check This Out!
• Decanting a Young Red Wine is a Sign of Confidence
• 11 Most-asked Questions About Wines – And Their Answers – Question 5 – 1
• 11 Most-asked Questions About Wines – And Their Answers – Question 11 – 6
• Versatile Beaujolais
• A Whole Country of Great Wines
• Does My Wine Need To Breathe? To Decant Or Not To Decant?
• A Reliable Cork Remover
• The Perfect Book For Those Just Starting And Those Continuing Their Wine Education
• Christina LoCasio Wine Art
• John Kerry Has a Wine Cooler on His New Yacht
• How Can I Keep My Wine at the Right Temp for Drinking on a Hot Summer Day?
• Latest in Wine Bottle Stoppers – February 2011

The answer is NO.  Yeah, but what about the caffeine?  The caffeine in coffee, tea and chocolate belong to the same class of compounds.  Coffee stimulates the central nervous system. Tea does the same, but in a lesser amount. The caffeine, theobromine, does not stimulate the central nervous system at all.

How about drinking with the chocolate?  Every wine lover knows that they go together.  Dark or bittersweet chocolates need a wine that offers a roasted, slightly robust flavor itself.  Cabs and Zinfandels are perfect matches. A Cabernet Sauvignon or a Zinfandel will more than fill your chocolate pairing expectations.  A Pinot Noir or a Merlot go well with dark chocolate of about 55% cocoa.  Lastly, try a Tawny or Vintage Port with a dark chocolate dessert or truffle.

They go well together in your wooden wine cabinet as well.  We store our chocolate on the top shelf of our wine cooler, making it easy to grab for the after-dinner wrap-up.

Sooner or later, you are going to experience a wine spill inside your wine refrigerator. Whenever you find the telltale evidence of a spill clean it ASAP.  Wipe the wine from the shelves with a damp cloth, removing them if necessary.  If the shelf is significantly wetted during cleaning let it dry before replacing it. Wipe soiled bottles below the one that leaked and pay attention to the lower door sill area and the cabinet bottom.  Inspect the door gasket for wine, particularly at the bottom.  Check the door glass for wine.  And finally deal with the spill source.  We don’t always finish a bottle at a sitting and it finds its way back to the cooler.  Our experience has been that all of our spills have been the result of loose-fitting and/or failed closures, typically of the type with the “push over lever”.  Throw it away. One last thing. Don’t forget to check the floor under the door for more wine.

For a general cleaning the following procedure is offered.

1. Turn the temperature controls to minimum, unplug the appliance, and remove all items including the shelves.
2. Wash the inside surfaces with a warm water and baking soda solution.  The solution should be about 2 tablespoons of baking soda to a quart of water.
3. Wash the shelves with mild detergent solution.
4. Wipe the outside of the cabinet with a soft cloth.  A stainless steel cleaner will help for the stainless cabinets. A one-to-one mixture of water and vinegar can be used to clean dirt and grease from your wooden cabinet.  Beyond that use the same products you use for your furniture care.
5. The drip tray catches any condensation created by the unit and must be checked and cleaned regularly.

WineCooler4U is growing.  Here is our first ad, currently running in our community.  We are developing plans for advertising on a wider scale later this year.

The wine industry is ever changing and so are the methods of storing and displaying wine. With this evolution Vinotemp offers touch screens, biometric locks, LED and neon lighting, metal racking, rounded displays, concave glass, and industrial looking features. The Vinotemp design team constantly evolves with your desires to  develop and create the latest, innovative wine cellars.

Speciality and Custom Designs
The design team has a library of designs and will work together with you or your designer when creating a  custom cabinet or wine room. Design and build your own personal custom cellar or replacement wine racks with the help of Vinotemp’s 2D and 3D CAD design team. Vinotemp also specializes in designing custom racking, cabinets, and cellars for commercial usage with an NSF option.

Vinotemp 48 Bottle Thermoelectric Wine Cooler

Eco Minded?
These energy-efficient wine cellars come in a variety of sizes and styles. Vinotemp Eco Series wine coolers have the features and style you are looking for. Plus, the Eco Series features environmentally-friendly thermoelectric cooling technology, which is ozone friendly.

What ever your wine storage needs, take a look at Vinotemp.

Vinotemp Wine Coolers and Wine Cabinets

Introduction

Vinotemp International, a leader in the wine storage industry, has been building premium wine cabinets or over 20 years. Vinotemp is a full-service manufacturer of custom wood wine cabinets and racking, Wine-Mate cooling systems, and a  designer of quality metal wine cellars. Vinotemp specializes in all aspects of the wine storage industry with an emphasis on customization. Since 1985, Vinotemp has sold over 250,000 wine cellars in the U.S. and overseas. Francis Ravel, the innovator and creator of  Vinotemp, was a man ahead of his time. He began his venture by selling and making his own wine. This is where he was first introduced to the idea of placing a cooling unit into a sealed wine cabinet. In the beginning, he had one factory making the wine cabinets and another making the cooling systems. Ravel then began manufacturing the wine cabinets himself. In the ‘90s, he decided to improve upon the current wine cooling system. With better components, the created the Wine-Mate cooling unit; the only UL-approved wine cooling system of its time. His daughter, India Hynes, worked with him for 15 years and is now the President of Vinotemp International.

Company Philosophy

Vinotemp’s goal is to provide the three most important aspects of a successful business: Quality, Value and Service. Vinotemp is known in this industry to provide a high quality product for an affordable price. Their custom built products, made in Southern California, are well known. For those on a budget or starting out, Vinotemp provides an entire line of products which produce the perfect environment for a wine collector. Vinotemp is a full-service company. The turn around time for their custom cabinets is very short, and our metal wine coolers can be shipped out the following day.  For those who do not require the flexibility in size and color, Vinotemp’s imported products provide customer choices at a value as well.

Not all wines improve with time. In fact, a vast majority of wines produced are ready to drink and do not have much potential for aging. Only a rare few will last longer than a decade.

For those wines that will age, at least somewhat, and for all of the others from which you can select for tonight’s dinner, keep them in a Cavavin wine cooler.